Discoveries Unmade
by MmeMozart182
Summary: Five AU ways Marguerite *didn't* learn the truth about her husband in the year 1792. Ranging from the really evil to the fairly cute. Implied marital activities.
1. January, 1792

_January 1792_

Marguerite pulled her cloak more tightly about her, raising her hood against the thin, penetrating drizzle. City of Lights or not, she wasn't sure Paris had seen the sun yet this year, and the faces around her reflected much the same foulness of mood and general pessimism that she felt herself.

Of course, the majority of them had not, presumably, begun the new year in the sinking and humiliating consciousness of failure and loss. Or waited and watched every day for the pleading, loving letter that she was increasingly less sure must be wending its way across the Channel. Or sat down daily at their desks to compose and destroy unfinished half a dozen notes, ranging from the heartfelt and tear-spotted to flippant and biting, announcing their own return.

The day had begun dark and stayed overcast, with the approach of evening almost imperceptible, but the sonorous echo of bells from the _Ile_ marked the hour and jerked her from her unpleasant reverie. She tightened her grip on the small bag of supplies and hurried forward. It was the girl's half-day, and so she had come out to do the shopping while poor Armand hastened back to his office. He had become suddenly both very busy and close-mouthed about much of his work, and she was grimly determined to not be a burden on him with foolish questions or demands. Their little life had fallen into rhythms that reminded her more of their early adolescence, those first awful hand-to-mouth years after Papa's death, than her glittering Parisian debut. And, oddly enough, she was not sorry. The little apartment Armand had taken to replace her salon was in a slightly shabbier neighborhood that was more convenient to his offices, and she had felt quite young again scrutinizing the shabby little market stalls for the best of a bad lot of vegetables and bread.

She rounded the corner, her mind still on the stew she would construct (and perhaps, beneath that, on what might be currently being prepared to be set before the elegant Sir Percival Blakeney in his empty house on the river) and walked into a table.

"Citoyenne! Excuse me!"

By the time she disentangled her skirts and her shopping from the legs of the rickety wooden structure, she had already succeeded in sending the poor man's little stock of paper, pens and ink sliding onto the damp cobblestones, where it was rapidly trod into mulch by indifferent feet.

"Oh! Oh my…"

Marguerite made a successful grab for at least the inkwell and managed to save it before it shattered. She set it back on the table, already rummaging for her reticule. It was all very well to romanticize the poverty of her youth, but she was just at this moment very happy that Armand had been recently paid and that the little stock she had taken away with her was still scarcely touched. The unfortunate letter-writer had scarcely moved, as if frozen in horror.

"I apologize most sincerely, citoyen. You must let me pay you the cost of the lost materials...and something for your trouble…"

She put out her hand with her most charming smile, looking up brightly into the face of the man beside her - what a tall fellow he was, to be sure..

The smile dropped from her face as if wiped off a slate. Her hand felt suddenly very cold, frozen on the grubby forearm emerging from the tattered sleeve, and she was abruptly conscious that her left foot was in an icy puddle, the liquid slowly seeping into her stocking.

But she could not move from staring into her husband's face.

"Not a word," he hissed, his voice shaking, a dreadful fear in his gaze. "Go home."

She opened her lips to disobey, everything spinning around her, a roaring in her ears. Percy - Percy in Paris, Percy _disguised_ …

He shook his arm from her and spoke in a voice she'd never heard, peremptory and commanding.

"Not a word. I'll come to you tonight. If you speak now, it's my life. And others'."

His voice changed, became a whining plaint in perfect not-quite-gutter French, the precise accent one would expect of an indifferently-educated young clerk or would-have-been priest fallen on hard times.

"Running into people, preventing an honest citizen from making a living, giddy girls…"

He gathered his ruined materials, folded his little table and shuffled away, waving off the coins still frozen in her hands, and disappeared before she felt she could breathe again.

Armand, thank all the saints and angels, sent a note round by the office boy that he would be working late and she must just leave something on the hob for him. Marguerite thought any attempt at casual dinner conversation would have driven her completely mad.

Maybe she was mad? She contemplated the possibility thoughtfully, sitting by the fire in the empty apartment as darkness crept in and the night wore on. She didn't _feel_ mad, but madwomen generally didn't, did they? She hadn't had any recent outbursts or unusual habits, and she didn't hear voices, but on the whole a sudden attack of madness seemed more likely than that, this afternoon, she had discovered her slightly stupid, rather dandified, and _definitely_ English new-wedded lord flawlessly disguised as an impoverished Parisian letter-writer.

Until the knock on the door.

He was no longer the letter-writer but a laborer, a rough man-of-all-work she would have passed in the streets without a thought other than that it probably wouldn't do to listen too closely to anything he muttered upon seeing her. When she opened the door, he lifted the battered crimson cap with its stained cockade from his head as elegantly as if it were the finest hat matched to his exquisite outfit. But his eyes were fixed on her with a terrible expression of pleading and hope, and his voice did not match the carelessness of the gesture.

"Lady Blakeney."

He seemed taller than she remembered, towering in the little hall.

She stepped back, opening the door and drawing a deep breath. This felt, somehow, a greater and more frightening step than the vows had been.

"I think you'd better come in and explain, Percy."


	2. August, 1792

_August, 1792_

"You idiot!"

She froze at the top of the landing, brow furrowed, heartbeat quickening, and stared in alarm at the closed door just visible at the end of the corridor.

Percy's study was closed, of course; with the exception of Frank's domestic round each morning, she had never seen it open, and even then Frank was usually careful to close and lock the door behind him as soon as he finished.

The door was solid oak as well, well-hung and constructed like everything in her husband's home was, and yet her brother's voice was raised enough that she could hear every word.

She hadn't realized Armand _knew_ some of the French words he was currently shouting. She rather hoped that Sir Percy didn't.

Fascinated and unable to help herself, Lady Blakeney moved step by step closer to that forbidding portal, as if drawn by an invisible magnet. Armand was impulsive and passionate, surely, but she had not heard his voice raised like this since the turbulences of adolescence. And to the brother-in-law (and host!) towards whom he had always maintained a calm, if affectionate, respect..

His feelings perhaps a trifle relieved by the string of native profanity, Armand switched back to English as she drew nearer.

"Of all the stubborn, bone-headed, willfully blind, inbred, humorless _absurdities_ , Blakeney, you are the absolute worst."

Percy's voice, quiet and almost inaudible, but cut through with a lazy, mocking note that made her teeth stand on edge. Armand's response leapt into furious volume again.

"I don't give a piss about what I promised. That is between you and I, and I've not let you down. It has nothing to do with my sister or your failure to keep your word."

Another inaudible murmur, not quite so casual this time.

"Oh, you will, will you? I should very much like to see you try, I don't care how many inches you have on me. If I'd had the slightest conception you hadn't told her, I'd have called you out last week in Nancy. Dueling is still legal in France, you know."

Marguerite froze, her fingers stilled on the smooth mahogany wainscoting, her head suddenly swimming with terrible imaginings. Not told her...Percy in France...an offense that Armand saw as a matter of honor...

Fortunately she had not long to lose in so bleak a reverie, for the study door slammed open and her brother, hair mussed and cravat loosened in the furor of his emotion, took a quick step out and bellowed her name.

He saw her standing not ten feet from him somewhere in the middle of the second syllable, and his voice dropped abruptly to a conversational register.

"Marguerite!...oh. Here you are."

He paused a moment, slightly deflated in the midst of his righteous anger, doubt creeping into the brown eyes. She raised one eyebrow and smiled hesitantly, adopting a light tone with some difficulty.

"Papa, were he here, would scold you for raising your voice, Armand."

His face darkened again immediately.

"Papa, I fear, would give me the back of his hand for leaving your happiness in the care of a cowardly fool."

Percy's voice came invisibly from the study, flint and dangerous beneath the attempt at flippancy.

"I say, my boy. You are in my house."

"I am in my sister's house," Armand flashed back over his shoulder, and brought his eyes back to Marguerite, holding out one hand.

"Little mother, come in here, please. Percy has something to tell you."

She had to bite back a bolt of hysterical laughter at the sound of it; her brother sounded like a father, sternly disapproving of some small mite embarrassed at his side. And when she stepped, as if into some ancient and forbidden temple, across the threshold of the study, she saw her six-foot-odd husband braced against an enormous desk, head down, face flushed, and mouth sulky, as if he were indeed a disgraced child hauled forth to make amends to a playfellow.

"Armand," she murmured a little helplessly, stung suddenly into an instinct to defend - defend! - her impregnable husband. "I'm not sure you're being…"

Percy breathed out a long sigh through his nose and looked up at her with an expression she had not seen in nearly a year: naked, rueful honestly.

"No, I fear he may be only too right, my lady."

He moved aside, indicating the chair snugged up to his desk. It was not a conspicuously soft or comfortable chair at all, for all her previous raillery.

"Will you sit? And perhaps your brother will give us over some privacy, before threatening to horsewhip me again?"


	3. October 2nd, 1792 (only just)

_October 2nd, 1792 (only just)_

Wrapped in a fog of misery, stomach sour with anxiety and fingers still tingling with the consciousness of her treachery, Marguerite groped her way to an unoccupied drawing room and sank into a gilt chair, pressing her cold fingers to her burning eyes. The chimes, marking three quarters of an hour, sang mockingly from somewhere in the little room, a mantel clock, perhaps; not an hour into a new day, and already she had sold a man's life. And Armand used to fuss at her about sleeping in too late.

She tried again to reassure herself. Armand was safe, or would be soon; that was the important thing. And could a man who had saved so many fail to save himself? Chauvelin was a fiend, but not omnipotent; chance had given him power over her, but the same fickle chance had long favored his noble enemy. Surely...surely…

"My darling! I thought I saw you come in!"

Marguerite looked up in quick relief at Suzanne's voice. She had all but given up on finding any time alone with her old friend, consistently shadowed as she was by either the termagant mother or, more pleasantly, the lovestruck Sir Andrew. The pretty young woman stood silhouetted in the light from the hall, her face quite hidden but her hands held out to Marguerite.

But Marguerite's relief turned quickly to alarm and bewilderment. Though she could not clearly see her face, Suzanne's voice trembled with unshed tears as she hastened forward, murmuring, "Oh, ma cherie…"

And then stumbled forward to her knees and buried her face in Marguerite's skirts, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

Quite effectively distracted from her own despair, Marguerite leaned forward, encircling Suzanne's shoulders with one hand and trying to raise her head with the other.

"Little Suzanne, ma plus chere! What on earth is it, beloved? Whatever can be wrong?"

Suzanne lifted a tear-stained face that was nevertheless radiant with joy, all but glowing in the dim light of the banked fire.

"Why, nothing is wrong, Margot, or nothing that will not soon be right, once Papa is here and practically by your own dear hand. You sent him, didn't you, cherie? You remembered little Suzanne from the convent and her stiff-necked Mamma and her silly brother, across all those years and miles, and you sent the bravest man in a thousand generations to save us. I can't ever thank you, Margot, so I'll only say I love you with all my heart, and I must come to know him very well so I can love him too.."

Marguerite's heart contracted sharply in her chest, an almost physical pain that robbed her of breath.

"Dear one, I have no idea…"

Suzanne laughed and captured Marguerite's hand lightly in both her own.

"I am not a child who can't keep secrets, my friend! You need not hide the truth from me, though I'm sure," her face sobered, "it must hurt to keep it from everyone else. But he _laughed_ , you know, cherie. Disguised as that ridiculous hideous woman, once we were all safe. I heard him talking to Sir Andrew," her blush visible even in the faint light," and I heard him laugh quite clearly. I _thought_ , at the inn in Dover, that I recognized his voice, but just now I heard it again and I knew. If I had any doubts left, why, they must have vanished as soon as I saw how Sir Andrew looks at him, or when I remembered all the confusion and gossip over how clever you could marry a silly British dandy...but of course you knew even then, and how brave you must have had to be, my poor love."

Marguerite felt her voice thick and slow in her throat, her movements limited to the treacly speed of nightmares.

"Suzanne. My friend. Tell me what you know."

Suzanne looked up at her in puzzled alarm, her brow creased.

"Why, that Sir Percy is the Scarlet Pimpernel, Margot. Your husband saved my family."

An instant later, Suzanne sat alone, hands still held out to empty air, bewildered and oddly anxious. Marguerite had left without a word, and Mlle de Tournay could hear nothing but the pounding of her friend's footsteps down the hall, and behind her the little mantel clock serenely chiming one.


	4. October 7th, 1792

_October 7th, 1792_

Lady Blakeney sat at the library window, her hands on an open book she had not looked at for at least a quarter hour, her distant inward gaze directed at the pearly rain streaking the windows. The fine late-summer weather had decayed into this steady October drizzle the very day Percy left, and she was prey to a curious fancy that it might not end until he returned.

Such a thought brought a breath more hope and joy to her eyes than would have been seen there at the thought of her husband several weeks ago. The last fortnight, since the Comtesse's cruel gibes and Chauvelin's sly whispers at Dover, had been a nightmare, a fog of anxiety and pain and impossible choices that still kept her up at night...but there had been moments of brightness too. The tremor in his voice on the terrace; the look in his eyes when he left.

As for her other concerns - well! Armand's fatal letter, delivered to her as agreed the morning after the ball, was dust and ashes in the grate, but no word had yet come to England of the arrest, let alone execution, of the secretive national hero. Marguerite had quite persuaded herself that the fellow who had outsmarted half of France already had not found himself stymied by one foreign envoy; quite possibly he had been alerted to his danger even at Lord Grenville's ball, and had failed to keep his appointment in the supper-room. Chauvelin was ruthless, she knew, but not dishonorable. His threats aside, no doubt her brother's life had been given to her in recognition for her efforts. And her own letter, exercising every emotional and authoritative appeal an elder sister could draw upon, would be halfway to Armand by now already. If he did not agree to wrap up his affairs in Paris and join her permanently in England upon receipt, she was no judge of her own eloquence.

And soon Sir Percy would be back, and this time - Marguerite pressed her lips together in a small unconscious smile, and nodded firmly. Yes. This time it would be different. Pride was all well and good for a young woman on her own, but it sat ill on a wife. Her deepest fear had been that she had already lost his affection permanently; his look and his voice the night of the ball had more than reassured her on that point. She was not afraid of a battle with Sir Percy's own pride, and she would not lose again to her own.

She rested her fingers on the back of her other hand, where his burning kiss had lingered in that cool dawn air. No, she did not anticipate too bruising a battle with Sir Percy's pride...if only he would return soon.

A polite cough interrupted her reverie, and she looked up to see the face of her husband's valet.

"Forgive me, my lady, but Edwards was occupied and so I saw to the door. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes seeks an audience with you; are you at home?"

Marguerite closed her book and set it aside, rising quickly. That trick she had played at the ball had weighed on her badly, and she was only too grateful at the opportunity to assuage her conscience with an afternoon of tea and biscuits and, no doubt, mutual discussion of the many virtues of a certain newly arrived mademoiselle.

"Yes, Frank, I am certainly at home to Sir Andrew. Please show him in at once."

She peered at him more closely, her brow creasing in concern.

"And then you had perhaps better take the afternoon, I think? You look terribly ill…"

Frank only nodded his white, drawn face, lips pressed tightly together.

"Your ladyship," and he exited with no other acknowledgment, returning an instant later to announce Sir Andrew Ffoulkes.

Any concern Marguerite might have still held for her husband's quiet, stolid valet vanished in the wave of her anxiety at the sight of Sir Andrew. The young man looked nearly twice his age, his face drawn in lines of pain and horror, although the expression in his eyes was the bewildered pain of the hurting child. He wore a plain black suit devoid of buttons, lined with only plain white linen at collar and cuffs, though it fit him tightly around the shoulders and middle as if made for a slightly thinner man. The style seemed at least three years out of date, and the harsh color made him sallow.

His voice was thick with unhappiness.

"Lady Blakeney."

Her hands were suddenly wound together so tightly she felt her joints crack.

"Suzanne. Something has happened to Suzanne. What is it, Sir Andrew?'

His face contorted into an even greater pain, and he shook his head, his lower lip held tight an instant between his teeth.

"No, no, your ladyship. Suzanne is well. Her father...her father landed at Dover late last night, and arrived here this morning. He was safe, despite..."

He trailed off, his lips pressed tightly together, but she had relaxed. Her chest loosened, and she felt herself able to reach out to him with a more gentle compassion, to be the comforter now that her own selfish fear was assuaged.

"Sir Andrew, Sir Percy is not at home, I fear, but pray, tell me how I can help you?"

He looked her full in the face, and her heart felt suddenly cold and sluggish in her chest, her mouth dry but her palms damp against her skirt.

"You...you had best sit down, my lady."

Numbly, obediently she turned, glancing about the room for a chair as if it were a foreign place to her, and then whirled back to him.

"Sir Percy. If Sir Percy is in trouble, Sir Andrew, you must take me to him at once. My carriage can be brought round in an instant, and I need not pack; anything I need I can purchase there...wherever…"

Now it was Andrew who looked at her with that wordless compassion, with a fruitless desire to ease the pain.

"My lady. God in heaven knows I would take his place if I could, but Sir Percy is nowhere now that you can go to him."

She sank down very slowly to the stool behind her, her hands wrapped tight around one another in her skirt.

"Sir Andrew, I do not understand…"

He knelt before her, taking her hands in his own, like a hopeful suitor or a polite courtier, and spoke without looking up. The remembered kiss on her hand burned like a brand.

"Your husband Percy - the Scarlet Pimpernel - was executed yesterday in Paris."

He said more, but she could not hear it for the roaring in her ears, the pounding in her heart, and the snickering ever-present whisper of the rain.


	5. October 7th, 1792 (another possibility)

_October 7th, 1792_

It was only an hour past dawn, but Marguerite was already confident today would be a good day.

The storm that had blown in off the Channel had dissipated within a few days, before she could even begin to fret that Armand might face bad weather in his attempts to leave France. And now the sun was shining brightly in her bedroom window, the birds singing audibly in the garden, and her brother, safe and sound, slept contentedly in a guest room, returned to her, she understood, by the combined efforts of a hero's exploits and her own husband's exercised political influence. The blankets were delightful against the early-October chill, though the crisp blue sky visible through her curtains enticed her to the outdoors, and she did a slight mental inventory of her wardrobe, wondering what she had that might be appropriate for a long stroll by the river, a few hours to appreciate the beginning of the turning leaves.

And, oh, yes. Her company.

Rolling over carefully and propping herself on one elbow, Marguerite surveyed her reclaimed property. Sir Percy was still fast asleep, as best she could tell, one arm flung out to pillow his head and the coverlet slipping off his bare shoulder. His silken hair was a mess, of course; well. She had not given him time to comb it, the night before. She'd help him pick out the knots later.

His face looked extraordinarily young in repose, the sarcastic glance hidden, the lazily smiling mouth slack and childlike in sleep. She smoothed his hair away from his temple very gently, not wanting yet to wake him, and then laid her fingers along his shoulder. The toughness of the muscle she felt there surprised her; he must spend more time at boxing and fencing on his jaunts than she had realized.

Her throat closed and a few tears pricked at her eyes, despite her smile. The words they had both said (finally, _finally_ said!) the night before still needed to be repeated and verified in the light of day, before she could truly believe in their permanence. That would form their conversation on the walk by the river, perhaps.

But last night, Marguerite had been unwilling to wait even for the light of day to talk to her husband. She had had ample time for reflection, these days when Percy was away and she waited, fearing that her actions might have doomed a selfless man or her own brother, and in the flush of relief when she saw brother and husband arrive together, with no rumors of the Pimpernel's demise either, the floodgates had opened. No sooner had Armand been fed and settled in his bed than she had demanded Sir Percy's attention.

And been amply repaid, even before their conversation began, by the sudden light of hope in his eyes. They had both asked and granted forgiveness. Offenses and harsh words were forgotten, and pride laid aside.

A few other things had been laid aside, too. Where _were_ her clothes?

Marguerite levered herself carefully out of the bed, still trying to let Percy sleep, and, restraining her giggles with difficulty, began to pick her way among the various items of clothing on the floor in search of something that would let her make her way back to her own room and reappear with at least a smidgen of respectability. Well! She was an old married woman, wasn't she? Blushes were for new brides like little Suzanne would soon be. If she had to, she'd brazen it out and ring for one of the maids to fetch her dressing gown.

She felt a wicked little smile turn her lips up at the thought of just how rigidly respectable Frank would react to such a request, and, perhaps distracted by the image, entangled herself in Sir Percy's jacket and nearly tripped. She did trip, in fact, but managed to twist herself so that it was an actress' managed fall instead of an actual stumble.

She was still on the floor, though. Hopefully Percy was still asleep.

Disentangling herself from the satin sleeves around her ankles, Lady Blakeney shivered at a gust of wind through the window. With a shrug, she wrapped herself in his coat - thin, but quite long and serviceable, at least for the moment - and peered about her, hopeful that her new position on the floor might give her better luck at finding something to wear.

 _There_. Her shift, under the bed. She reached for it and her fingers found something else as well, something small and cold and surprisingly heavy for its size. She wriggled into her shift, wrapped his coat around her again, and only then examined what she had found.

A small square ring, a signet ring - that was all. Her earrings and wedding ring were no doubt about the room somewhere, too; she thought she'd had the presence of mind to set them on the end table, but perhaps this had been in his pocket.

There was nothing surprising about a man of Sir Percy's status having a signet ring on his person.

Nothing surprising about its containing a flower as his sign.

Nothing surprising about the flower being crimson, five-petalled, or familiar...very like something she had seen quite recently...in Sir Andrew's hands...

"Yes."

The voice came from just above her shoulder; she _had_ woken him with her stumble. He lay flat on his stomach and leaned over the footboard of the bed, his chin propped on his folded arms, only a little hint in the dark blue eyes of just how terrified he was.

"I meant to tell you today, Margot. You have to believe that."

She set the ring (cool and cold, the metal) in her palm and folded her other hand over it, slowly, hiding the terribly familiar little design. A great many things were becoming suddenly clear, and many of them hurt, piercingly, little barbed arrows of truth that nestled deep into her heart.

But she thought there might still be some joy left at the end of the volley.

"I think," she said, her voice not quite steady, "that you and I are going to need to take a very long walk after breakfast."

His smile was the brightest thing she had ever seen.

"I would be honored, my lady."

 _(Fin)_


End file.
